"In the Weave of Night" and Other Sonnets

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"In the Weave of Night" and Other Sonnets Page 1

by Daniel Hargrove


"In the Weave of Night"

  and Other Sonnets

  by Daniel Hargrove

  Copyright 2014 Daniel Hargrove

  Cover art copyright 2014 Daniel Hargrove

  This book is published for anyone's enjoyment. Authors retain the copyright to their work. Users may read, copy and distribute the work in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes, provided the authors and the journal are appropriately credited. The users are not allowed to remix, transform or build upon the published material.

  Table of Contents

  01) In the Weave of Night

  02) After the Setting of the Sun

  03) In a Frayed Glimpse

  04) The Spy

  05) In the Tangled Wind

  06) In the Clutch of Arrogant Pose

  07) In Cover of Darkness

  08) Between Relatives

  09) A Spur of Blossoms, Sleeping

  10) At the End of Winter

  11) About the Imperfection of Saints

  12) As the Desert is Wide

  13) Nor Under Roses

  14) A Stranger Before Dusk

  15) At the Knocking Gate

  16) One Foggy Night in the Everglades

  17) Of Surrendering Our Blindness

  18) From the Merest of Sighs

  19) On the Timelessness of Sleep

  20) In a Bloom of Trills

  21) In Our Innermost Rooms

  22) All I Ask

  23) In a Hot Shade

  24) In the Quiet of Her Willows

  25) ...and Keenest Sight, Ajar

  26) In a Maze of Doublethink

  27) In One Man's Eye

  28) A Promise Broken

  29) Delirium, it Shines

  30) In That Portion of Living

  31) In Perspective

  32) At the Shadow's Gleam

  33) If Never Regret

  34) In a Trick of Tales

  35) In Loyalty to the Billowing Smoke

  36) In the Thatch of Fray

  37) Nary a Time

  38) Never Heard of It

  39) Such as it Was

  In the Weave of Night

  As elusive and mysterious as it seems,

  without quite understanding when or where,

  I've known your gentle touch, so soft and rare...

  I've walked along beside you in my dreams.

  We've met in cotton places, hidden and soft,

  we've seen the view below from the top of the stair,

  I will never have to ask you if you care...

  for you wing upon the winds like a bird aloft.

  In a cave at the edge of the world, away from the glare,

  lies a sadness, locked away in an iron box.

  You know, as I do, I have seen your footprints there.

  Something that can't be touched, though it is real,

  draws me to you, unchains and opens my locks...

  elusive as silk, I cannot name what I feel.

  After the Setting of the Sun

  In shuttered castle high upon a rock,

  a gray old woman sat inside a room,

  weaving complex patterns on her loom,

  her curtains drawn, her door, her chamber locked.

  Upon the walnut wood there came a knock.

  The woman froze and felt impending doom...

  a voice that seemed to ring out from a tomb

  drowned out the quiet ticking of the clock.

  "Your time is up, the king has made his oath!"

  the hollow voice declared in hollow words...

  and sorrow gripped the hearts of each and both.

  "Tell the king the king himself must come!"

  she commanded loudly through the walnut door.

  The old guard quietly left then, keeping mum.

  In a Frayed Glimpse

  I've watched the years roll on, I strike a match,

  reflected in our eyes, we watch the flare;

  a flame, a promise, fire a reckless dare,

  now caught in whispered dust, a restless scratch.

  And at the door, my heart, she lifts the latch,

  and though I know she long considers, there,

  to visit, for awhile, an old man’s lair,

  or see my garden, but a weedy patch.

  She sees the fray of love's criss-crossing thatch,

  now lit with sulfur light, I cannot bear

  her gaze on unwove pleat, now unattached.

  It seems to light of love, there is a catch,

  no matter true, no matter fine and rare,

  uncertain words, aloud, for wind to snatch.

  The Spy

  In a house upon a hill you once knew well,

  inside the crumbling remnants of a wall,

  a mouse is waiting for the dinner bell...

  to scurry by the baseboards down the hall.

  A lonely little girl had cast a spell

  (and left a few stale bread crumbs by her doll)

  to insure a spying mouse would never tell

  the magic learned before she'd learned to crawl.

  A mouse may not be dangerous, it's true...

  but to the little girl her secrets were

  not something to be risked to nosy fur.

  Into the ancient coven she was born,

  and always she had known just what to do...

  to keep the ancient knowledge for the few.

  In the Tangled Wind

  Lightning flash reflected in her eyes...

  rain beats down and soaks her clothes and hair.

  Moon in clouds, her face in storm, so bare,

  no doubts of love, no recoil or disguise.

  Raindrops mix her tears, forlorn, she cries,

  a place far from the storm, we always share...

  and for some time she's been away from there;

  lured from my embrace by thorny lies.

  Remember, love, no matter when or where

  you're caught outside 'neath black and cloudy skies,

  you're only hours from our warm, safe lair.

  No matter how the howl of bluster tries,

  can't change the truth of how I always care,

  yet lost on breezes, lover's troubled sighs.

  In the Clutch of Arrogant Pose

  The world is masked from us with obfuscation

  no matter how we peer or how we pry…

  not very clever, rarely very sly,

  a cover masking nothing but predation.

  For many, it’s a source of recreation,

  veils on veils, and shadows of goodbye,

  mistaking then, a glimmer in the eye,

  a fox-and-henhouse spark, for our salvation.

  Winding on, but never asking why,

  demanding that we kneel in our frustration,

  and finally, extortion, for the lie.

  It is nothing less than degradation…

  a mind expected to believe or die…

  for honest men, the heighth of aggravation.

  In Cover of Darkness

  I creep into your dreams at night

  and bring the shrieks which you aver;

  slinking thus in dim starlight

  I bang on pots and cause a stir.

  There is a chance, however slight,

  your visions will not pale and blur

  and you'll be left with phantoms bright

  of dancing waters, long impure.

  In midnight, tossing, never sure

  if white is black or black is white,

  you never reach an ending, quite.

  One thing you know, it isn't right

>   if every moment leads to her

  and what those silver bells infer.

  Between Relatives

  A chord is struck…a web, a clock, is made,

  yet, we cannot, this harmony, sustain…

  right or wrong, a second joker, played

  is never answered with a calm refrain.

  While seemingly, it’s just a spot of shade,

  what follows is the lightning, thunder, rain,

  and cold and shiv’ring winds would so embraid

  in coil of midnight’s stroke, a diamond, plain.

  In contradicting so, we've sorely strayed,

  and black as coal, have redly, sunrise, slain…

  yet now, the kings and queens, we think, explain.

  Still, if I had my druthers in a trade,

  I’d turn my jacks to deuces, drawn in twain,

  and winning hands, to teatime, on the train.

  A Spur of Blossoms, Sleeping

  When lace and silk, upon my love, adorn,

  in heated blood, my hapless heart will flow

  a song that winter birds, for spring, will know

  and flowers’ petals part unto, this morn.

  All that reaches sun has stirred and worn,

  yet sun is not at all that burning glow

  within me, that her sweet suggestions sow,

  and of my ration, I am quickly shorn.

  Her tender calm, alike to grazing doe

  will startle, catching sight, awild, of horn

  the call of spring within her, even so.

  A rush of breeze, a curious fire is born

  tattling on a lick of weave, although

  in naked scent my root and sap are sworn.

  At the End of Winter

  Inside her breast, a wild and gentle heart,

  I yearn to sleep and dream in hollow, there;

  by berry's hunt, and blue jay's feathered art,

  warm in winter, caved and dreaming bear,

  While the winds of wildness fan the sparks of seed

  her smile has captured me in a branchy snare.

  Leaves enfold and nurture flames of need...

  off to spring in the warmth of dreamy lair.

  Quiet mow, the charms of willowy green,

  in passion of melting snows, I stir, and wake,

  in my beating heart, a fresh and summery ache.

  I am there with her, in shallows, I am seen...

  my eyes still closed, I imagine her by the lake,

  and under the sun, we join what spring will make.

  Dec. 9th, 2001

  About the Imperfection of Saints

  We all have caught philosophers and seers

  striving to avoid the truth, forlorn.

  Our dreams are but a patchwork quilt, all worn

  and all our lives are made of fleeting years.

  So if their vision yet is in arrears,

  we should not cruelly tear it down with scorn,

  as to a swath of shadows we are sworn

  and no one paints a portrait just with tears.

  Though for release we battle and we burn,

  certain truths pertain to one and all,

  and fire is a lesson, as we learn.

  To each his own, a motto that we know...

  but living it is harder than we think,

  and anyone who has would tell you so.

  As the Desert is Wide

  When time lies drifted into dunes of sand

  and arid winds lend shape to desert floor

  which whisper secrets of a foreign land

  into the shifting sand, a path we score.

  Our steps uncertain, charted by our hands

  our thirst demanding water more and more,

  the sun above repeating its commands,

  the desert heat yet burning to the core.

  Mirages in the distance seem so cool

  though promises they make are for a fool.

  Oasis in the shimmer beckons clear,

  horizons paint rewards which disappear

  out of sunlight's all consuming glare

  Which way to water? Where is it, oh where?

  Nor Under Roses

  No one came and stood beside its grave…

  forgotten, covered over where it lay…

  for so long defended by the brave…

  that for which so many kneel and pray.

  It never mattered much what youth will crave…

  I only wish, a dragon, lies would slay…

  and if true love had ever owned a slave

  its dying makes a hundred more this day.

  For only this, the miser in us gave,

  so no surprise a liar’s game, should play…

  how easily our hearts are led astray.

  The song is over, nothing left to save…

  I didn't know, still over yesterday,

  no matter what we do or what we say.

  A Stranger Before Dusk

  I must explain just where the sun has went

  or else this night will chill me to the bone.

  Again, I’m falsely asked, then, to atone

  and appease this sweetest lover I am lent.

  A shadow struck, a ray of sun was bent,

  tired of trying to find me all alone,

  and now the dark has tumbled down a stone

  for me to wear, whatever my intent.

  Behind a crescent frown, and silver moan

  this dusty voice of rock, so aptly sent,

  defies the red of dawn with every groan…

  for, once the coin of sunset, I have spent,

  while time again, the stars expanse has shone,

  I’ll wonder long just what the day had meant.

  At the Knocking Gate

  The latch slipped off the table onto the floor,

  and clattered, though the wood was covered in dust.

  It broke in pieces, eaten, as it was, with rust.

  Not for years had it locked the old man's door.

  This night, the widower's bones were tired and sore.

  All day in the garden he had sweated, worked and fussed

  with peavine and trellis, as in the summer you must,

  if, in the fall, a tub of peas, and more.

  All day long, how he had puttered and cussed;

  his boots were muddy, his overalls were tore.

  His beard was long; his hair was tangled and mussed.

  No one remembered his house in the woods, he was poor...

  and, so what if the lock on his door should long ago bust?

  What family he had considered him a wretched bore.

  One Foggy Night in the Everglades

  A bullfrog somewhere nearby loudly croaks

  on a pond in some dark and willowy bog

  cloaked by sheets of wet, low-hanging fog.

  A full moon shines through mist enshrouded oaks.

  Nearby a water snake considers, and soaks,

  submerged upon an underwater log

  just a foot from the unobservant frog.

  Ten feet away a female bullfrog spoke.

  The snake struck sharply as the big bull jumped!

  And missed his likely captive by a hair.

  The big male splashed somewhere way over there.

  Both the frogs jumped deeper in the swamp.

  The snake would have to find nother meal...

  his victim's life happily spared by a woman's appeal.

  Of Surrendering Our Blindness

  Of the parting of the folds of that dark veil...

  of the light we see from on the other side...

  to starry blackness we have told a tale,

  the light will show us if or not we lied.

  In darkness we must weave extensive themes,

  and from the nights consuming glare we hide...

  the truth is not exactly as it seems;

  we find the shadow of that truth inside.

  To journey of the green we lend our hand,


  tangled we must hold a torch up high

  to see wherein the woods the others lie...

  once finding in the thick a living glow

  we're welcomed in the warmth of cooking fire;

  to embraces yield the thorny clutch of ire...

  From the Merest of Sighs

  As every silken dress must first be spun;

  as every impossible knot must first be tied;

  every untold story, yet begun,

  depends on what we've seen and felt inside.

  Each blade of grass was first a ray of sun;

  each once of courage first a hint of pride;

  each time of peace, a battle never won;

  each freedom that we have, a plan untried.

  So when you set to spinning on that wheel,

  your hands know what to do from times before...

  your thoughts are occupied with ancient lore.

  Pertaining to that brightly colored thread

  from which the simple patterned cloth is made;

  of bold, contrasting hues, be not afraid.

  On the Timelessness of Sleep

  Out of time and out of night we sing,

  far from harness of the sleepy town,

  away from pillow, blanket, bed, and gown,

  we take to willows, dreaming on the wing.

  Too often in our lives we've felt the sting

  of crippled fates and yearnings all tied down,

  we've always had retreat's freedom around...

  with all the leeway starry skies can bring.

  We join eternal forces, broad and deep...

  expression painting wand'ring hills and trees...

  unfettered so, we journey in our sleep.

  The sureness of our step is never lost,

  our measure never finds our keeping, there...

  as underneath the scattered gems, we're tossed.

  In a Bloom of Trills

  A song of spring, to love, your passion, lend,

  and sweetly blush in blossoms’ fragrant scent…

  we’ll follow where the melting ice had went

  and scatter dandelions on the wind.

 

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